Cellular imaging articles within Nature Communications

Featured

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Artificial compartments have been expressed in prokaryotes and yeast, but similar capabilities have been missing for mammalian cell engineering. Here the authors use bacterial encapsulins to engineer genetically controlled multifunctional orthogonal compartments in mammalian cells.

    • Felix Sigmund
    • , Christoph Massner
    •  & Gil G. Westmeyer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Nanobodies (Nbs) coupled to organic dyes are increasingly used for super-resolution cell imaging, but producing gene-specific Nbs is time-consuming. Here the authors present a peptide-tag/Nb combination for dSTORM imaging which can be easily adapted to different targets in fixed and live cells.

    • David Virant
    • , Bjoern Traenkle
    •  & Ulrich Rothbauer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    S-palmitoylation regulation has been studied mostly in the cytosol and its role in mitochondria is unclear. Here the authors develop fluorescent mitochondria-targeted probes and find that depalmitoylation occurs in mitochondria and it’s influenced by alterations in mitochondrial lipid homeostasis.

    • Rahul S. Kathayat
    • , Yang Cao
    •  & Bryan C. Dickinson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Eukaryotic genomes are partitioned into self-interacting modules or topologically associated domains (TADs) that exist at the kilo-megabase scale. Here Cattoni et al. combine super-resolution microscopy with DNA-labeling methods to quantify absolute frequencies of interactions within TADs.

    • Diego I. Cattoni
    • , Andrés M. Cardozo Gizzi
    •  & Marcelo Nollmann

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The ability to quantify the organization of cell membrane molecules is limited by the density of labeling and experimental conditions. Here, the authors use super-resolution optical fluctuation (SOFI) for molecular density and clustering analyses, and investigate nanoscale distribution of CD4 glycoprotein.

    • Tomáš Lukeš
    • , Daniela Glatzová
    •  & Marek Cebecauer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The dopamine transporter (DAT) has a crucial role in the regulation of neurotransmission. Here, the authors use super-resolution imaging to show that DAT clusters into cholesterol-dependent membrane regions that are reversibly regulated by ionotropic glutamate receptors activation.

    • Troels Rahbek-Clemmensen
    • , Matthew D. Lycas
    •  & Ulrik Gether

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Integrins are cell-surface adhesion receptors that are modulated by endo-exocytic trafficking, but existing tools to study this process can interfere with function. Here the authors develop β1 integrins carrying traceable tags in the extracellular domain; a pH-sensitive pHlourin tag or a HaloTag to facilitate dye attachment.

    • Clotilde Huet-Calderwood
    • , Felix Rivera-Molina
    •  & David A. Calderwood

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) induces formation of inclusion bodies (IBs) sheltering viral RNA synthesis. Here, Rincheval et al. identify highly dynamic IB-associated granules (IBAGs) that accumulate newly synthetized viral mRNA and the viral M2-1 protein but exclude viral genomic RNA and RNA polymerase complexes.

    • Vincent Rincheval
    • , Mickael Lelek
    •  & Marie-Anne Rameix-Welti

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Split fluorescent proteins (FPs) have been widely used to visualise proteins in cells. Here the authors develop a screen for engineering new split FPs, and report a yellow-green split-mNeonGreen2 with reduced background, a red split-sfCherry2 for multicolour labeling, and its photoactivatable variant for super-resolution use.

    • Siyu Feng
    • , Sayaka Sekine
    •  & Bo Huang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Membrane-bound mVEGFR1 is a decoy VEGF-A receptor that regulates VEGF-A signalling amplitude. Boucheret al. show that Rab27a-regulated palmitoylation of mVEGFR1 redirects the receptor from a stable, constitutively recycling mode to a degradative route that removes ligands from the system.

    • Joshua M. Boucher
    • , Ryan P. Clark
    •  & Victoria L. Bautch

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The mechanisms linking phenotypic heterogeneity to collective cancer invasion are unclear. Here the authors develop an image-guided genomic technique to select and amplify leader and follower cells fromin vitroinvading cell packs and find a cooperative symbiotic relationship between these two cell populations.

    • J. Konen
    • , E. Summerbell
    •  & A. I. Marcus

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cardiac trabeculae (which are sponge-like muscular structures) form mostly as a result of cardiomyocyte (CM) delamination in zebrafish. Here, the authors identify Nrg2a in zebrafish as a key regulator of trabeculation, and atrial and non-contractile CMs also respond to Nrg2a despite not forming trabeculae.

    • S. Javad Rasouli
    •  & Didier Y. R. Stainier

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In vitro models of actin organization show the formation of vortices, asters and stars. Here Fritzsche et al. show that such actin structures form in living cells in a manner dependent on the Arp2/3 complex but not myosin, and such structures influence membrane architecture but not cortex elasticity.

    • M. Fritzsche
    • , D. Li
    •  & C. Eggeling

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Despite their role in oceanic CaCO3production, the physiological processes responsible for calcification in foraminifera are poorly understood Here, the authors show that calcification is driven by rapid transformation of bicarbonate to carbonate inside the cytoplasm, achieved by active outward proton pumping.

    • Takashi Toyofuku
    • , Miki Y. Matsuo
    •  & Hiroshi Kitazato

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Nanoscopy of non-adherent cells is currently not possible, due to their movement in solution. Here the authors immobilize and manipulate fixedE. coli by multiple optical traps; their holographic optical tweezers enable dSTORM imaging of orthogonal planes via 3D realignment of the sample.

    • Robin Diekmann
    • , Deanna L. Wolfson
    •  & Thomas Huser

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The mechanism underlying endothelial cell responses to BMP signals is unknown. Here, the authors show that the endothelial response to pro-angiogenic BMP ligands is regulated by Notch via its effect on SMAD6, a known inhibitor of BMP intracellular signaling cascade.

    • Kevin P. Mouillesseaux
    • , David S. Wiley
    •  & Victoria L. Bautch

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The coupling of optogenetics with fluorescent Ca2+ sensors is confounded by sensitivity of optogenetic probes to light used to excite the sensors. Here the authors develop a Ca2+ sensor based on bioluminescence resonance energy transfer (BRET) that monitors Ca2+fluxes in darkness without excitation.

    • Jie Yang
    • , Derrick Cumberbatch
    •  & Carl Hirschie Johnson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    MICU1 is a regulatory subunit of mitochondrial Ca2+ channels that shields mitochondria from Ca2+ overload. Here the authors show that MICU1 methylation by PRMT1 reduces Ca2+ sensitivity, which is normalized by UCP2/3, re-establishing mitochondrial Ca2+uptake activity.

    • Corina T. Madreiter-Sokolowski
    • , Christiane Klec
    •  & Wolfgang F. Graier

  • Article
    | Open Access

    How molecular crowding affects membrane protein diffusion and function is not known. Here the authors measure diffusion of variant surface glycoprotein on trypanosomes and discover a molecular crowding threshold that limits diffusion, and find that N-linked glycans help to prevent retarding intermolecular interactions.

    • Andreas J. W. Hartel
    • , Marius Glogger
    •  & Markus Engstler

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Nuclear envelope transmembrane proteins (NETs) can reside in the outer or inner nuclear membrane, but distinguishing which membrane they reside in, and their translocation rate, is technically challenging. Here the authors develop a FRAP-based super-resolution microscopy method to obtain this information for several NETs.

    • Krishna C Mudumbi
    • , Eric C Schirmer
    •  & Weidong Yang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    High-throughput imaging methods for brain-wide connectome mapping with precise location reference have been lacking. Here authors report a method that allows simultaneous acquisition of fluorescently labelled neurons and cytoarchitectural landmarks in the same mouse brain at the single-cell resolution.

    • Hui Gong
    • , Dongli Xu
    •  & Qingming Luo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Current dyes for second harmonic generation (SHG) imaging strongly fluoresce, limiting their application. Here the authors develop a SHG-specific dye, Ap3, that partitions into cell membranes, displays sensitivity to membrane potential and has virtually no fluorescence emission at SHG imaging wavelengths.

    • Mutsuo Nuriya
    • , Shun Fukushima
    •  & Tatsuo Arai

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Oligomerisation of transcription factors regulates their translocation into the nucleus, DNA binding affinity and sequence specificity. Here, Hinde et al. present a microscopy analysis, pair correlation of molecular brightness, that tracks the molecular mobility of different oligomeric species in the same cell.

    • Elizabeth Hinde
    • , Elvis Pandžić
    •  & Katharina Gaus

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Tagging proteins with fluorescent proteins is a powerful method for both imaging and non-imaging applications. Here the authors use the eleventh β-strand of sfGFP and sfCherry as epitope tags for multicolour imaging and amplified signals by tandem arrangement; shortness of the tag enabled introduction into genomic loci using CRISPR/Cas9.

    • Daichi Kamiyama
    • , Sayaka Sekine
    •  & Bo Huang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The advent of fluorescence-based super-resolution microscopy has created a need for labeling strategies relying on small probes that minimally perturb protein function. Here the authors describe a labeling method that reduces protein tag and label sizes, allowing for accurate protein targeting and measurements of protein dynamics in tight cellular spaces.

    • Ingrid Chamma
    • , Mathieu Letellier
    •  & Olivier Thoumine

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Single-molecule imaging of protein-DNA association requires fluorescently labelled protein, which limits the protein concentration that can be used. Here the authors exploit protein induced fluorescent enhancement of DNA sparsely labelled with Cy3 to visualize protein binding and correlate it with changes in DNA conformation.

    • Dan Song
    • , Thomas G. W. Graham
    •  & Joseph J. Loparo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The intracellular applications of STED microscopy are limited by the availability of dyes. Here the authors develop a two-colour labelling strategy based on SiR and ATTO590 dyes, and apply their strategy to image various subcellular membrane compartments.

    • Francesca Bottanelli
    • , Emil B. Kromann
    •  & Joerg Bewersdorf

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It was recently shown that basal cells in pseudostratified epithelia extend a long cytoplasmic process across the tight junction barrier into the lumen. Here Roy & Kim et al. show that these projections, which they call axiopodia, extend and retract over time in a c-Src and MEK-ERK-dependent manner.

    • Jeremy Roy
    • , Bongki Kim
    •  & Sylvie Breton

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Nitric oxide is a volatile free radical second messenger with a large number of biological effects. Here Eroglu et al. develop genetically encoded fluorescent biosensors for nitric oxide and use them to visualise subcellular nitric oxide dynamics in single cells.

    • Emrah Eroglu
    • , Benjamin Gottschalk
    •  & Roland Malli

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Existing DNA stains for live cell microscopy are either toxic, require illumination with blue light, or are not compatible with super-resolution microscopy. Here the authors develop SiRHoechst, a non-toxic far-red DNA stain that is compatible with super-resolution microscopy.

    • Gražvydas Lukinavičius
    • , Claudia Blaukopf
    •  & Kai Johnsson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cell-matrix adhesions may increase or decrease in size in response to tension; however, the factors determining which of these responses predominates remain unclear. Hernández-Varas et al. quantify the plastic relationship between adhesion size and tension and use modelling to explain this behaviour.

    • Pablo Hernández-Varas
    • , Ulrich Berge
    •  & Staffan Strömblad

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The ability to measure signalling responses in single cells following short pulses of stimulus would shed insight into temporal thresholds for cell activation. Here the authors introduce a microfluidic platform that allows downstream phosphorylation cascades to be observed following as little as one second of stimulus exposure.

    • Alphonsus H. C. Ng
    • , M. Dean Chamberlain
    •  & Aaron R. Wheeler

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Preparing biological material for electron microscopy (EM) involves harsh processing steps that can poorly preserve cellular ultrastructure. Here the authors apply a single layer of graphene onto wet cells to enable direct EM using low voltage, and correlate actin filaments and mitochondria using super-resolution microscopy.

    • Michal Wojcik
    • , Margaret Hauser
    •  & Ke Xu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Extracellular vesicles (EVs) act as a conduit for intercellular communication through the exchange of cellular materials without direct cell-to-cell contacts. Here the authors develop a multiplexed reporter system that allows monitoring of EV exchange, cargo delivery and protein translation between different cell populations.

    • Charles P. Lai
    • , Edward Y. Kim
    •  & Xandra O. Breakefield

  • Article |

    Imaging live cells at nanometre resolution is challenging because radiation damage kills the cells during exposure. Here, the authors overcome this difficulty in a ‘diffraction before destruction’ experiment using an X-ray laser and record signal to 4 nm resolution on a free-flying cell.

    • Gijs van der Schot
    • , Martin Svenda
    •  & Tomas Ekeberg

  • Article |

    T regulatory cells (Tregs) prevent immunopathology by inhibiting excessive T-cell activation. Here the authors show interactions between dendritic cells, Tregs and antigen-specific T cells in the lymph node during initiation of the immune response in real time by two-photon microscopy.

    • Melanie P. Matheu
    • , Shivashankar Othy
    •  & Michael D. Cahalan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cellular imaging studies can generate large volumes of complex phenotypic data; however, presenting this information in a form that quickly conveys trends in the data set remains a challenge. Sailem et al.present a tool which translates such data into easily interpretable cell-like glyphs.

    • Heba Z. Sailem
    • , Julia E. Sero
    •  & Chris Bakal

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Super-resolution optical fluctuation imaging provides 3D images of biological specimens via blinking fluorophores. Geissbuehler et al. present a multiplexed version of this method that captures images at multiple focal planes simultaneously, reducing the acquisition time compared with standard approaches.

    • Stefan Geissbuehler
    • , Azat Sharipov
    •  & Marcel Leutenegger

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Single-molecule localization microscopy depends on the use of photo-modulatable fluorescent probes; however, many cannot be used in live-cell studies due to poor cell permeability. Pan et al.present a strategy for constructing cell-permeable probes and use it to image actin filament dynamics and lysosomes.

    • Deng Pan
    • , Zhe Hu
    •  & Yu-Hui Zhang

  • Article |

    The availability of tracers to track the health of cells over long periods of time will be of value to optimize cell-based therapy. Here, Lee et al.design a nanoparticle that fluoresces red in living cells, but fluoresces green when cells begin to die from apoptosis or necrosis.

    • Seung Koo Lee
    • , Luke J. Mortensen
    •  & Ching-Hsuan Tung

  • Article |

    Magneto-fluorescent nanoparticles hold promise for bioimaging applications, but synthesizing uniform particles with tunable sizes remains challenging. Chen et al. propose an approach for co-assembling magnetic particles with fluorescent quantum dots, leading to well-defined core-shell structures.

    • Ou Chen
    • , Lars Riedemann
    •  & Moungi G. Bawendi

Browse broader subjects

Browse narrower subjects

Browse Cellular imaging across other nature.com journals